Mercury contamination of environmental specimens
Since the late 1980s mercury levels in spruce shoots from the Saarland conurbation have declined considerably. A similar trend is apparent for herring gull eggs from the North Sea. In herring gull eggs from the Baltic Sea, however, mercury has increased slightly. Decreasing mercury levels are also detected in bream from Rhine, Elbe and Mulde whereas contamination of breams from the rivers Saar and Saale have increased slightly since the mid 1990s.
From 1985 to 1995, mercury emissions in Germany have decreased by two-thirds. As a result, the state of the environment has improved significantly.
Mercury contamination of spruce
Since the late 1980s mercury in spruce shoots from the Saarland conurbation has decreased by about 70%.
Mercury contamination of herring gull eggs
Mercury in herring gull eggs from the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea (sampling site Trischen) has decreased by about 70% since the late 1980s. A comparable trend is found for eggs from the Lower Saxony site Mellum (approximately 50 % decrease). In contrast, mercury levels in eggs from the Baltic Sea were about 3% higher in 2010 than in 1993.
Overall, mercury concentrations detected in the eggs of herring gulls no longer represent unusually high levels of contamination.
Mercury contamination of bream
Since the mid 1990s mercury levels in bream from Rhine, Elbe and Mulde have decreased. In contrast, contaminations of bream from the rivers Saar and Saale have increased slightly. Figure 3 shows this exemplarily for the Elbe tributaries Mulde and Saale.
Evaluation of mercury contamination of bream
In 2010 bream from all sampling sites had mercury levels far below the maximum levels for foodstuffs, i.e. 500 ng/g wet weight (ww).
The more stringent environmental quality standard for mercury in biota (20 ng/g ww), however, was failed by all samples.